1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a controller for an electronic appliance, and particularly, to a controller for remotely controlling an electronic appliance having a display, such as a television receiver and a personal computer.
2. Description of Related Art
In the 1980s, home appliances such as television receivers started to have infrared remote controllers. Remote-control user interfaces have widely spread and greatly changed the style of use of home appliances. At present, the remote control is in the main stream. The remote controllers basically employ the same scheme when accomplishing functions. Namely, they require a user to push a key corresponding to a desired function. For example, a remote controller for a television receiver has keys “Power,” “Channel,” “Volume,” “Input switching,” and the like to realize convenient remote control of the television receiver.
To control data broadcasting which has started recently, a user must repeatedly manipulate an “Up-down-left-right” key and an “Enter” key on a remote controller until a desired menu is displayed. This is troublesome for the user. An EPG (electronic program guide) displays a matrix of guides and prompts the user to select a desired one of the guides by pushing keys on a remote controller. This is also troublesome for the user.
To cope with the problem, Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2003-283866 has disclosed a controller that employs a position specifying device such as a mouse to provide positional information, encodes the positional information into a time-series of key codes or a time-series pattern of pushed key signals, and transmits the time-series of key codes to a television receiver.
This related art requires a user to conduct a pointing operation, which resembles the pointing operation of a personal computer, when remotely controlling a television receiver. If the user is unfamiliar with a personal computer, such pointing operation is troublesome for the user. Applying the operation techniques of personal computers to home appliances is unreasonable in view of information literacy (ability to use information). There is a need for a new controller suitable for remote-controlling today's television receivers.
Due to advancement in network technology, television receivers and displays for personal computers can display various types of information from storage media or from the Internet. Such a variety of information pieces involve a variety of handling methods, and current remote controllers accompanying home appliances are insufficient to cope with such a variety of handling methods. There is a need for a remote controller capable of coping with many handling methods.
Only by expanding the size and capacity, the conventional remote controller can cover a variety of complicated functions of present home appliances such as television receivers. For example, a menu of data broadcasting requires a user to conduct many steps of pointing operations, and therefore, the user is forced to use the conventional remote controller as a pointing device. The conventional remote controller, however, is problematic to use it as a pointing device. When controlling a plurality of networked devices, the user must manipulate the irrespective remote controllers via a display. The number of remote controllers increases in proportion to the number of networked devices. This problem is frequently experienced in present days when a television receiver, for example, is connected to other devices such as a VTR, a video disk, and an audio unit. It is bothersome for the user to find a correct one among the remote controllers of these interlinked devices. In addition, the conventional remote controller is substantially unable to select and control information pieces provided by various web sites via the Internet.